


Buried

by DyslexicSquirrel



Series: Short stories [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24160600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyslexicSquirrel/pseuds/DyslexicSquirrel
Summary: “Well,” the man said, clicking a button on the keyboard in front of him to turn off the video feed. He spun around in the office chair where he sat, nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and sighed, looking at his companion. “She lasted longer than the previous subjects. Make a note,” he pulled the sleeve of his sweater back to check the time, “five hours and two minutes from time of burial to loss of consciousness.”
Series: Short stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743580





	Buried

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I wrote for my creative writing class. I left a lot of things open ended, or not fully explained, on purpose. 
> 
> I have no excuses for this.

“Well,” the man said, clicking a button on the keyboard in front of him to turn off the video feed. He spun around in the office chair where he sat, nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and sighed, looking at his companion. “She lasted longer than the previous subjects. Make a note,” he pulled the sleeve of his sweater back to check the time, “five hours and two minutes from time of burial to loss of consciousness.”

* * *

Maddie woke disoriented and cursed when she hit her head on something hard. Where the hell was she? Did she go back to her dorm and not remember? If she fell asleep on her roommate’s bunk instead of hers it would explain why she couldn’t sit up. But how drunk did she get last night? 

The last thing Maddie remembered was going to the party at Phi Beta Sigma that Crystal dragged her to. “I mean, seriously,” her friend said, leaning across the table in the library, voice low so Mr. Shriner didn’t shush them, “this is  _ the  _ party, Mads.”

She had gone because she didn’t want to be the  _ loser _ that wasn’t there, like she had been all through high school, but she hadn’t really wanted to and she had a paper due next week. One drink, she promised Crystal. Maybe a game of beer pong if they had it. But she must have drank more than she thought because she felt hungover, her head was killing her, but hopefully Crystal had gotten her back to their dorm and— __

Maddie squeezed her eyes shut tighter for a moment, praying to whatever higher power there was that she didn’t open her eyes and find herself in someone else’s room. She had flirted with more than a few people last night and Drunk Her had a habit of not thinking about the awkward Morning After when she saw a cute face. 

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to—

Darkness. 

Not  _ curtains were closed  _ darkness, but  _ bottom of a well  _ darkness. Not that Maddie knew what the bottom of a well was like from personal experience, but she guessed it would be something like  _ this _ . If she had to guess. 

“What the fuck?” she asked out loud, trying not to freak. Since her eyes were useless, Maddie used her hands to feel around and came up against something hard all too soon. Her elbows hit the side of… wherever the hell she was when she reached her hands straight out. Flexing her feet met much the same.

Other details started filtering in then. How cold and solid the surface she was lying on was, it was smooth and felt seamless; how stale the air smelled. Okay, she was starting to freak out. 

“Hello?” Maddie said, voice cracking. When that yielded no reply she tried again, louder, and again when there was still nothing but the sound of her own voice, until she was yelling, banging against the top of the… box or… 

Oh, no. Oh, God. 

Don’t think it, she told herself, but she was quickly edging from freaking out into  _ panic _ .

Or a coffin. It was like a coffin. 

Her shouting morphed into shrill screams. 

* * *

“What were her measurements?” he asked. “Compared to the others?” 

“Two inches taller than subject six, who had been the shortest. And she weighs twenty-five percent more than subject eight, who previously had the least amount of body mass.” His companion said, tucking her hair behind her ear when a dark strand fell forward as she glanced at the iPad in her hands. “The differences in their ages could account for that, though. But subject six was male and of average height. The current subject is taller than average for a female of her age and race.”

He hummed thoughtfully tapping his fingers against his knee. There were so many variables. “We’ll have to wait until the postmortem to see if she had any preexisting conditions to factor into the data. Didn’t six have a heart murmur?”

“Yes. One was diabetic, three and six had asthma, and,” she scrolled through something on her screen, “nine was a heavy smoker. Not sure to what extent any of those factors had on the results, though. Not yet.”

“We need more data,” he murmured, eyes trained on the wall in front of him. This had been an obsession of his for years and he was finally getting to do the research he always wanted to. He was going to find out exactly how much the human body could take.

He had his parents to thank for this. It was such a shame they weren’t here to witness his accomplishments, but they hadn’t understood in the end. He’d had to do what he did and they were a part of history now. Or they would be once his research was finished. 

* * *

Maddie screamed until her throat felt like it was bleeding and her arms were tired from clawing at the metal lid above her. It had been useless anyway; it all was. She was stuck here and whoever put her here wasn’t letting her out. She rested there in the dark, trying to get her breathing under control.  _ You’re using up all your air _ , she told herself.  _ Wasn’t there an episode of, like, Criminal Minds like this? _ Or something. One of those crime shows Crystal teased her for watching so religiously.

That thought made Maddie laugh for some reason. All the times she thought about living in an episode of a tv show, it hadn’t been like this. She could almost hear Spencer Reed telling her how many hours she had to live, and the laughter choked off, into tears morphed into sobs until she felt like she was drowning. Arms wrapped around herself to stop from shaking apart, Maddie tried to think. There had to be something she could do.

Hoping that maybe her kidnapper ( _ Killer _ , an insidious voice whispered in the back of her mind) was an idiot, she reached down and patted her pockets for her phone, then her jacket, but there was nothing. Some hazy, half formed memory floated around her brain, playing on the inside of her eyelids. A man, her dad’s age, asking if he could borrow her phone because his had died and he had a flat tire? Had that really happened? What had the man looked like? 

She couldn’t really remember, his image like a reflection in a rippling pond. Think, Maddie, think. It’s important. The authorities need to know what he looks like. 

_ It won’t matter _ , that voice whispered again.  _ You won’t be able to tell anyone anything.  _

“Shut _ up _ ,” she snapped at herself. This couldn’t be it. She was only twenty-one.

She inhaled, shakily, and held it the way she did before a game, to center herself. She couldn’t help thinking how pissed her coach would be when she didn’t show up for volleyball practice. And, God, her  _ mom _ . The last time they talked, their weekly Sunday night check-in, they got into a fight about something stupid. She couldn’t even remember what it was about. Now, she would never have a chance to apologize. Had she even said ‘I love you’ before hanging up? She couldn’t remember and that made pain sear through her chest.

Or maybe that’s what dying felt like?

Maddie was kind of dizzy, which was a weird sensation to have while lying down. Taking a deep breath was getting harder. Kind of like when she went skiing for the first time in Colorado. The mountain had been so high. She remembered feeling so small, yet so big, like she could touch the sky. 

“I’m sorry, mom,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. She just felt so damn tired. She didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed because everything looked the same either way.

“Don’t you quit now, Turner!” Her coach's voice was so clear she almost thought the woman was right there next to her, shouting in her ear.

“I’m tired,” she murmured. And was it quitting if there was no hope of getting anywhere? She wasn’t getting out of here. She knew that. Might have deluded herself there for a while, but she wasn’t stupid, and she’d never believed in fairy tales. There was no white knight waiting to ride to her rescue. No one knew she was missing or if they did, she wasn’t getting found before it was too late.

A strange calm settled over Maddie then. She floated, thinking about everything and nothing all at once. Time was nebulous in this little bubble. It could have been hours or minutes. 

When the air got even thinner and sleep started to seep in around her consciousness, Maddie slipped into it with welcome arms.

* * *

**Vanished into Thin Air?**

_ Madeline Rebecca Turner, a junior at the University of Michigan went missing last month after a party at one of the fraternity houses. Her roommate, Crystal White, reported her missing after she never came back to their dorm the next night. “I wasn’t worried at first because I thought she went home with someone else,” Ms. White told reporters. “But she never misses class and she wasn’t answering her phone.” _

_ Her purse along with her phone was found in a dumpster close to the Phi Beta Sigma house by campus security the day after her disappearance. So far, the police have no leads and no other trace of Madeline has been found. Other students who were at the party were questioned, but no one can remember seeing her after 10 pm and there are no suspects that police are willing to name. _

_ “We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” the lead detective on the case said when asked.  _

_ A number of other individuals in the Ann Arbor area, as well as another student at the University of Michigan the year before, Peter Higgins, have been reported missing and brought up concerns that there is a serial offender. Police refused to substantiate any of rumors and the university would only say they were urging students to be more cautious in the wake of Madeleine's disappearance, but didn’t seem to think there was a link between Madeline’s and Peter’s disappearances.  _

_ Madeline’s parents, Steve and Anna, declined a request for an interview. Mr. and Mrs. Higgins agreed to an interview, saying they felt the school and the Ann Arbor police hadn’t taken their son’s disappearance seriously enough. “They kept suggesting he had run off,” his mother, Jennifer said, “but Pete wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t have gone off somewhere and not told us.” They’re still hopeful, though, that their son will be found and have hired a private investigator to look into his case.  _

_ Madeline was slated to join the U.S. Olympic volleyball team and had plans to become a social worker after graduation. If anyone has any information or has seen Madeline call the Ann Arbor police department at the number below. _


End file.
